48. ii) Progressing to cosmopolitanism

Who could have predicted that, less than a year after boldly promising "British jobs for British people," Mr Brown would have his words come back to bite him in his prudently ample arse? That such an innocuous phrase might be interpreted by some as "Read my lips : no new jobs for Johnny Foreigner"? Listening to various government bods arguing the semantics of the Caledonian Charmer's rhetoric on Radio 4's Westminster Hour helped shorten a motorway drive through the falling snow last night, and the consequent cockle-warmth provided for the heart is much appreciated in the unseasonably seasonable weather we are currently experiencing.

As well as containing fascinating insights into the continent's bugs and critturs, EB9's EUROPE article finds time to remark on the phenomena of Nationalism : then a novel concept, as yet unsullied by darker notions.

"We have seen that nationalism is powerfully at work ; the tendency to give practical application in the political domain to the principal familiarly expressed in the phrase qui se ressemble s'assemble, birds of a feather flock together. The so-called nations of Europeare still in painful process of formation, -some in one stage and some in another, but all without exception very imperfectly organinized."

Imperfectly organized? One hundred and thirty years later, it is difficult to recognize the Europe so described. (For the benefit of younger readers, please insert a winking smiley face here).

"As a mere vocable the word nation is old enough, but the thought which it now expresses is a thought that men are but beginning to think. Europe has had its tribes and its kingdoms, its village-communities, its cities, its Achaean leagues, its Hanseatic confederations, its republics, its empires ; it is only developing its nations. [...] [The priciple of nationalism] sometimes appears as a restorative and conservative, sometimes as an innovating and creative force ; and any attempt to insist that it shall be exclusively this or that is certain to be abortive. Here it is on the side of the weak and oppressed, and seems humane and benign ; there on the side of the strong and despotic, and seems stern and cruel. In spite of all difficulties and opposition it is making rapid progress, and is likely to be a powerful factor in Europe for generations to come,-building up political unities, rehabilitating decadent languages, and calling new literatures into life. Greece and Italy, Belgium and Bohemia, Hungary and Roumania, are testimonies of its power in the past decades of the century : who will say what it will have accomplished before the century is done?"

Here, however, is another concept to consider, at a time when more Britons than ever are employed in and doing business with our neighbours on the continental mainland, whilst others struggle to come to terms with alien sausages and jam finding their way onto supermarket shelves, and skilled, literate workers from the Czech Republic and Poland unaccountably fill jobs that somebody who struggles with the motivation to sign on once a fortnight might otherwise have occupied:

"As a natural complement of nationalism we have internationalism, which in certain aspects may be regarded a stage in the progression to cosmopolitanism. Just in proportion as the various nations develop and recognize their national individuality they become conscious of their true relations to each other, and find the necessity of regulating their mutual intercourse and common activity ; isolation is impossible. Reciprocity must increase with the capabilities and desires of each : there are many things which can be attained only by concerted action or division of labour."

The phrase "division of labour" was clearly intended differently from the association which now forms in my mind when considering Europe and the notion that "reciprocity must increase with the capabilities and desires of each." Here's a thought for all the noble demagogues from UKIP contemptuously filing their expense claims as MEPs in Brussels:

"The tendency of internationalism is displayed in the purely political domain by the growth of international law, and the gradual endeavours after a system by which international disputes may be settled by arbitration and discussion rather than by armaments and devastation. That it will end before long in something like a confederation of European states the optimist believes and the philanthropist hopes. Every European congress familiarizes the idea and establishes the habit."

If the term "before long" can be taken to mean "after one hundred years and two world wars," then both optimist and philanthropist would have cause for celebration. Nonetheless, H. A. Webster's vision remains inspiring, now that it has in many respects been realized.

"In the social domain, the tendency is equally potent. Facilities of travel and accumulation of wealth are annually leading a greater proportion of the citizens of one country to make personal acquaintance with the citizens of another. Ignorance and bigotry are naturally lessened, though there are indeed an ignorance and a bigotry which return from abroad more ignorant and bigoted than before."

A statement with which I would expect we can all readily concur, requiring no heavy-handed references to stag weekends, easy jet, nor the Twilight Zone facility of finding egg and chips on the Costa del Sol and tapas in the East End of London.

Vive l'Europe.

23 (iii) Modesty, thy name is Professor J. B. Pettigrew

"To Professor J. Bell Pettigrew is due the merit of having first satisfactorily analysed [wing] movements, and of having reproduced them by the aid of artificial wings. This physiologist in 1867 showed that all natural wings, whether of the insect, bat, or bird, are screws structurally, and that they act as screws when they are made to vibrate, from the fact that they twist in opposite directions during the down and up strokes. He also explained that all wings act upon a common principle, and that they present oblique, kite-like surfaces to the air, through which they pass much in the same way that an oar passes through water in sculling. He further pointed out that the wings of flying creatures (contrary to received opinions, and as has been already indicated) strike downwards and forwards during the down strokes, and upwards and forwards during the up strokes. Lastly, and most important of all, he demonstrated that the wings of flying creatures, when the bodies of said creatures are fixed, describe figure-of-8 tracks in space, - the figure-of-8 tracks, when the bodies are released and advancing as in rapid flight, being opened out and converted into waved tracks.

Professor Pettigrew's discovery of the figure-of-8 and waved movements, concerning which so much has been said and written, was confirmed some two years after it was made by Professor E. J. Marey by the aid of the "sphygmograph."

from FLIGHT, FLYING MACHINES in volume 9 of the Ninth Edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Author : Professor J. B. Pettigrew. Including credits to illustrations and tables, I count no fewer than 45 named citations of the illustrious academic, which must surely be some kind of record.

It is a great shame that for all the time and energy the professor invested in the study of flapping, not a single flying machine following that model has ever sustained flight. Perhaps surprisingly, J. B. P. was not entirely blinkered in his view of the problem of flight, and although containing a great deal on the subject of flapping, his article does eventually move into other areas.

"In flight, one of two things is necessary. Either the wings must attack the air with great violence, or the air in rapid motion must attack the wings : either suffices. [...] The flight of the albatross supplies the necessary illustration. If by chance this magnificent bird alights upon the sea he must flap and beat the water and air with his wings with tremendous energy until he gets fairly launched. This done he extends his enormous pinions and sails majestically along, seldom deigning to flap his wings, the breeze works for him."

The article continues at length, describing with enthusiasm projected and attempted models, in many (but not all) of which some kind of flapping motion is a key feature. It would be far fairer to Professor Pettigrew to reproduce his text in full : however fairness is not my object at this time, so we will finish with the professor's final, patriotic words, and do our best to forget two bicycle-salesmen brothers from Ohio.

"The unremitting efforts of Mr Moy and other British engineers to construct flying machines deserve well of science. They are significant as showing that the great subject of aerial navigation is at length receiving a fair share of the thought and energy of a country which has already produced the locomotive engine, and which, there is good reason to believe, is destined also to produce the flying machine."

[You can now enjoy the article FLIGHT, FLYING MACHINES in full at the 1902 Encyclopedia, complete with all illustrations.]

9. A transcendent boon

Lord Goldsmith has sustained much mockery in the past week for his mealy-mouthed proposals to reinvigorate our glorious nation's disaffected youth with a sense of national pride, by means of an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, or not the Queen if that would be contentious, but, er, something else. Of course, Lord G is only working on the theme announced by Mr Brown, promising "British jobs for British people", or was it "Britishness, Britishness, Britishness", "Peace, Land and Britishness" or "British jam tomorrow"? I forget.

Amongst the red, white and blue ideas being run up the flagpole to see whether anyone pledges allegiance to them, is the proposal for a national British Holiday. As it is vital for this date not to cause offence to anyone, the obvious choice to celebrate the various Acts of Union are happily ruled out by falling on already existing holidays, and thus avoiding the abiding resentment and rancour which the commemoration of these events would inevitably arouse. In seeking a date which would not displease the Scots, Irish and Welsh, a further consideration has been extended to our continental neighbours the French: Trafalgar Day, 21st October, has already been ruled out, which I suppose discounts my own personal preference for 25th October, ie the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt and also my birthday, immortalised by the Bard in Henry V with the following lines

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhood cheap whiles any speaks
That celebrated national identity in a positive and inclusive manner on this Saint Crispin's Day

In fact, I can reveal from confidential sources in Downing Street that the cabinet have already agreed that on April 1st 2008 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland will proudly be celebrating Positive Social Cohesion Day.

What has been causing Mr Brown and his chums to pace up and down wearing thin the carpet of the Cabinet Room, is the worrying apparent lack of a sense of national identity, a sense of confusion over what exactly the 'shared values' that are often bandied about really are, about what being British means. I have no doubt that if they were referred to the Ninth Edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica they would protest that they wish to define Britishness for the 21st century, not in the days of Empire, but I would contend that there is a great deal in the Ninth's dusty pages which may be found surprisingly enlightening. Of course I would say that, wouldn't I? but bear with me if you have the patience.

The first point of call for us should naturally be the Index, and here indeed we find the first clue, because as to subjects containing the word 'British', there is very little to be found (other than the geographical entries for British Columbia, British Guyana, etc). Ancient Britain has it's historical entries, for Caesar's invasion of, coins of and Celtic dialects of. The British Almanac, the British Museum, the British Army and the British and Foreign Bible Society are all here. Finally, and more promisingly, we have British Subjects, their privileges - which directs us to volume 1 and the entry ALIEN.

The introduction of this short and uncredited essay offers a few thoughts on a matter which I believe has a degree of relevance today.

The jealousy which has generally existed against communicating the privileges of citizenship to foreigners has its foundations in mistaken views of political economy. It arose from the impression that the produce of the energy and enterprise of any community is a limited quality, of which each man's share will be the less the more competitors there are ; superseding the just view that the wealth of the state depends on the number and energy of the producers. Thus the skilled workmen who would increase its riches have often been jealously kept out of a country.

[...] Britain has occasionally received industrious and valuable citizens, driven forth by the folly or tyranny of other powers, as in the memorable instance of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, which sent the Spitalfields colony and many other Frenchmen to this country. Looking on the full benefit of British citizenship as a transcendent boon, the principle of our older legislation on the subject has been to allow friendly aliens to possess at least a portion of it.

To refer back to the Index, we note in passing that there is no entry for British Empire, so we must look instead to GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, United Kingdom of, in volume 11. The entry runs to less than 500 words, and is basically an account of the formal adoption of the title on Jan 1 1801 and its origin in a proclamation of James I in 1604. For the entry GREBE we are treated to just over 1000 words, and even an illustration of the Great Crested variety.

So Great Britain is treated by Britannia in its constituent parts, with separate entries for ENGLAND, SCOTLAND and IRELAND. As is reflected by the composition of the Union Flag, there is no separate entry for Wales, which is treated along with England. Somewhere in one of his essays (which I do not have to hand) George Orwell made the argument that it is perfectly correct to use England in place of Britain, to refer to the whole of these islands. I also recall that the index of one of the volumes of his collected works contains the entry "Scotsman, how to annoy a" (refer to him as scotch rather than scots is the suggestion). All of this may highlight a fundamental and rather obvious issue, that the notion of Britishness is inherently English, that by and large it is an Englishman rather than a Scot or Welshman who is going to call himself British, so good luck to you Mr Brown if you would have it any other way.

The ENGLAND essay, authored by Frederick Martin (Geography and Statistics), and Professors E. A. Freeman D.C.L. and S. Rawson Gardiner, M.A., runs to an impressive 144 pages. Combined with the essays on the Church of England (Rev. Canon Perry), the English Bible (Rev J. H. Blunt, D.D.), English Language (James A. H. Murray, LL.D.) and English literature (Thomas Arnold, M.A.), we have 220 pages: probably over 250,000 words, which would make a substantial book in themselves. The combined subjects for SCOTLAND are found in a single entry at 70 pages, and IRELAND receives 58.

Mr Martin provides a wealth of data on England in 1879, from population estimates, growth rates, births and deaths, illegitamcy (greatest increase in Essex, Hertfordshire and Rutlandshire) and emigration, through number of land owners (just under 1 million, about 5% of the population - in Ireland 1 in 79 of the population owned land), livestock, mineral resources of various kinds, to cotton manufacture, wool, worsted and silk, hemp (61 factories in 1874), imports and exports of fish, custom receipts, shipping tonnage, distribution of railways, passenger traffic, the postal system, money orders, telegraphy, banking, taxation, army recruitment (16,602 recruits from the whole of the United Kingdom in 1873, leading to a force estimated in 1877 - 1878 of 7153 commisioned officers, 16,968 N.C.O.'s and 109,599 rank and file), yeomanry and militia (total 632,911 men), Naval expenditure, increase of armour thickness in ironclads (previous to 1870 no thicker than 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 inches, 1870 to 1873 6 to 8 inches, the "Alexandra" of 1877 having 8 to 12 inches and the appropriately named "Inflexible" under construction in the same year being 16 to 24 inches in the central part), number of religious denominations ("no less than 122" including Apostolics, all shades of Baptists, Calvinists, Christian Teetotallers, Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, Eclectics, Episcopalean Dissenters, Halifax Psychological Society, Hallelujah Band, Inghamites, Jews, Peculiar People, Plymouth Bretheren, Protestant Members of the Church of England, Protestants "adhering to articles of Church of England, 1 to 18 inclusive, but rejecting order and ritual", Quakers, Ranters, Recreative Religionists, Roman Catholics, Sandemanians, Swedenborgians, Trinitarians, Unitarians, Welsh Free Presbytarians, among others), progress of education in the upper and middle classes, progress of education among the lower classes ("While these efforts were made to improve the education of the upper and middle classes, the lower classes of the population were not altogether forgotten."), Proportion of persons unable to sign their names to marriage registers (lowest in Westmoreland at 8%, 11% being able to sign in Rutlandshire, although there we must not forget the high rate of illegitimacy, 17% failing in Yorkshire, 18% in Lancashire, Staffordshire topping the table at 30% of men and 37% of women), number of prisoners (165,142), number of police (28,550), number of paupers (728,350 in 1877), revenues of hospitals, classification of charities as to objects, progress of savings banks, incomes from lands, trades and professions, growth of capital and more besides.

Before closing with some information about the government and law of England and Wales, Mr Martin has this to say concerning England's position in the world:

[T]he late Mr Dudley Baxter [...] expressed [the] belief that, while "the income of England is the largest of any nation, and shows wonderful good fortune and prosperity, we must not forget that it rests on an unstable foundation. The turn of trade, or obstinacy and short-sightedness in our working-classes, or a great naval war, may drive us from the markets of the world, and bring down our auxiliary as well as our productive industries.

[...] England's position is not that of a great landed proprieter, with an assured revenue, and only subject to occasional loss of crops, or hostile depredations. It is that of a great merchant who, by immense skill and capital, has gained the front rank, and developed an enormous commerce, but has to support an ever increasing host of dependants. He has to encounter the risks of trade, and to face jealous rivals, and can only depend on continued good judgment and fortune, with the help of God, to maintain himself and his successors in the foremost place among the nations of the world."

As for Government and Laws Mr Martin, getting all meta-textual on us, quotes the article CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW:

England differs conspicuously from most other countries. Her constitution is to a large extent unwritten, using the word in much the same sense as when we speak of unwritten law. Its rules can be found in no written document, but depend, as so much of English law does, on precedent modified by a constant process of interpretation.

This last, the notion of an unwritten constitution, is surely one of the most fundamentally British concepts, and one I'd personally be very happy to see continue. Of course there is a very sizeable proportion of our Labour government who would prefer to remedy this situation, so this may be a 'core value' that is on its way out.

Instead, therefore, we might look for an idea of Britishness amongst resonances in the data sketched above with the Britain we know today. I would suggest illegitimacy, illiteracy, growing hemp production, religious diversity (hurrah! Although whatever happened to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion?) and also a general pessimism and insecurity about the future prospects of the nation. Although it is now merely a historical issue, I also think that it would be rather nice to celebrate the increasing thickness of armour of the nation's ironclads: yes, we all know the role that ironclad-mania played in the escalations that launched the Great War, and that Argentinian deployment of French Exocet missiles in the Falklands War may well have marked battleships as effectively useless except as resupply depots for wars against mostly land-locked nations, but 24 inches, Ladies and Gentlemen! Does that not fill your heart, be it English, Irish, Welsh or Scots, with a certain thrill of British pride?

2. The perverted ingenuity of man

A grimly sincere sounding American chap on the Today program the other morning was making a very forceful argument in support of the American legal system legislating for the use of torture. What if a terrorist in your custody has the information to prevent an imminent and devastating attack on the White House, the gravelly-voiced gentleman posited, should security forces not have the right to stick nails under the prisoner's fingernails?

"Torture" has its entry in Volume 23 of the 9th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the essay is the work of one James Williams.

At the outset Mr Williams disappoints the salacious reader by declaring his interest to be the role of torture in legal processes ancient and modern, rather than providing a catalogue of "the innumerable modes of inflicting pain which have been from time to time devised by the perverted ingenuity of man [...]."

"The whole subject is now one of only historical interest as far as Europe is concerned."

A comprehensive history is given of the role of torture in Greek and Roman law, and how it has been applied in Europe throughout the centuries.

Of the United States there is little for Williams to say. "One instance of the peine forte et dure is known. It was inflicted in 1692 on Giles Cory of Salem, who refused to plead when arraigned for witchcraft." One recorded instance, an admirable record. Williams earlier explains that peine forte et dure was the only torture that had been legislated for in England, to be applied where a person refused to plead either guilty or not guilty. Boards would be placed across the prostrate form of the recalcitrant accused, and heavy weights added until they either were persuaded to enter a plea, or in agony expired. Giles Cory is probably most familiar to us today thanks to the gruesome scene in The Crucible, which powerfully portrays this pre-Constitutional equivalent of 'pleading the Fifth.'

Other than this instance it only remains for the 9th to round up by quoting the Constitution's prohibition on 'cruel and unusual punishment', before returning to the more fertile ground of the varied brutalities practised in continental Europe.

James Williams would doubtless provoke even more of a disdainful sneer from Mr Pins-under-the-nails than the average namby-pamby liberal Radio 4 listener of today. He provides a colourful-sounding list of tortures permitteded in 17th - 18th century Scottish Law including "...the rack, the pilniewinkis, the boot, the caschie-laws, the lang irnis, the narrow-bore..." and concludes somberly with the "worst of all, the waking, or artificial prevention of sleep." What, no water-boarding? Of course, Mr Williams was writing in simpler times, and so too unsophisticated to appreciate the distinction between torture and enhanced interrogation techniques.